This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/152,705 filed Jun. 3, 2011, which claims priority to EP application no. 11168358.7 filed Jun. 1, 2011, and French application no. 1054379 filed Jun. 3, 2010.
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a speed controller, particularly for a video game, that may operate at least according to a sequential mode and a manual mode.
The invention relates to a speed controller consisting in a controller for video games making it possible to simulate the use of one or more of the members for controlling the speed of a simulated vehicle, that is to say more precisely a controller that generates information corresponding to the activation of a gear shift lever (or shifter), of an accelerator or brake (hand brake, for example) for a simulated vehicle.
More particularly, the invention relates to a speed controller that may operate at least according to a sequential mode and a manual mode, comprising a support casing, a lever hingeably mounted on said support casing and able to pivot, from a neutral position, in a longitudinal direction around a transversal axis and in a transversal direction around a longitudinal axis, the transversal and longitudinal axes being orthogonal, and detection means able to detect, in the manual mode, at least two different positions of the speed controller lever obtained by pivoting the speed controller lever at least in the longitudinal direction from the neutral position and, in the sequential mode, at least two different positions of the speed controller lever.
Background
Such a speed controller is for example described in patent document U.S. Pat. No. 7,650,810. In the sequential mode, the gear shift lever pivots around the transversal axis between two different positions on either side of the neutral position. In order to guide the movement of the gear shift lever between the neutral position and the various positions of the manual mode and/or the sequential mode, the speed controller is provided with a gate comprising a transversal slot also called neutral row and a plurality of longitudinal slots opening into the transversal slot.
In the sequential mode, the user moves the lever in two facing longitudinal slots placed on either side of the neutral position. For the change from the manual mode to the sequential mode, the gate is modified by a sliding mechanism in order to restrict the movement of the gear shift lever to the two aforementioned longitudinal slots. The gate may also be replaced by another gate comprising one single longitudinal slot corresponding to the two facing longitudinal slots.
The implementation of such a speed controller requires, in addition to detection means for detecting all of the positions of the manual mode and the sequential mode, so called transversal elastic return means to elastically bring the speed controller lever back to the neutral position along a transversal direction as well as so called longitudinal elastic return means to elastically bring the speed controller lever back to the neutral position along a longitudinal direction, the longitudinal elastic return means only being of use in the sequential mode.